Articles by: Clinton Fernandes

Author Biography:

Professor Clinton Fernandes is in the Future Operations Research Group at the University of New South Wales. His research focuses on emerging technologies ranging from hypersonic missiles to electromagnetic pulse weapons, directed-energy weapons, human performance enhancement, bioengineering, nanotechnologies, and advanced materials and manufacturing methods.

What Are the Submarines Really For?

Arena Quarterly no. 8

Clinton Fernandes

Dec 2021

The decision to acquire nuclear-powered boats reflects what has been the Australian Way of War for more than a century: to operate inside the strategy of a superpower by contributing a well-chosen, niche capability to augment the larger force.

Trade routes or War Games?: Subs and the geopolitics behind the China threat

Arena Online

Clinton Fernandes

1 Oct 2021

Australian strategic planners are well aware that it would be absurd to protect trade with China from China… In the real world, the military build-up is about whether foreign military and intelligence activities can be conducted in another country’s exclusive economic zone.

The Rules-Based Order

Arena Quarterly no. 7

Clinton Fernandes

Sep 2021

Military historians are well aware that Australian governments have not gone to war for sentimental reasons or because they were duped. The organising principle of Australian foreign policy is to remain on the winning side of a worldwide confrontation between the empire and the lands dominated by it.

China Games

Arena Quarterly no. 6

Clinton Fernandes

Jun 2021

China responded to the US presence in the Bashi Channel by sending Su-30 and J-16 fighter aircraft and Xian H-6 bombers into the area, where they simulated missile attacks on the US vessels.

The China Divide: Industry, technology and military relations are all tied up in strategies now unfolding

Arena Quarterly no. 4

Clinton Fernandes

Dec 2020

The United States is determined to stop China narrowing the gap in technological prowess. The new ‘digital iron curtain’ dividing the world into US and Chinese technological zones runs through Australia…

Safe Space for Spying: What remains unsaid by the Signals Directorate

Arena Online

Clinton Fernandes

10 Sep 2020

In government, neither side of politics has ordered an inquiry into the Iraq War, and the most obvious question is not asked in the NSC’s safe spaces: do Australia’s expeditionary military campaigns raise or lower the threat to domestic security? If you fear the answer, better not ask the question.

"Review(s) of: Secret: The Making of Australia's Security State, by Brian Toohey, (Melbourne University Press,…

Informit: Sub-imperial state: Australian dirty work [Book Review]

Arena Quarterly no. 2

Clinton Fernandes

Jul 2020

PDF available from Informit

Review(s) of: Secret: The Making of Australia's Security State, by Brian Toohey, (Melbourne University Press, 2019); Oil Under Troubled Water: Australia's Timor Sea Intrigue, by Bernard Collaery, (Melbourne University Press, 2020).

Sub-Imperial State: Australian Dirty Work

Arena Quarterly no. 2

Clinton Fernandes

Jul 2020

The instruments of statecraft, as exposed by Brian Toohey and Bernard Collaery, are wielded in the interests of those with real power: elite elements in the private sector and the US national-security state, which defends a global order protective of its interests.